First Rain
by Nitesh
Summary: [Once On This Island] After Ti Moune leaves the village, Tonton wonders if he made the right choice in letting her go.


**First Rain**

_**We're doing this play in our high school right now, and I absolutely love how someone plays Tonton in the song 'Ti Moune'. He's played in the saddest way and he looks so hurt when he's singing it. So I had to write a fic about it one night after a performance.**_

_**Enjoy.**_

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Ti Moune's form ebbed slowly away into the fog.

It seemed as if our very emotions were affecting the weather. Surely Asaka and Agwe were watching, and draping Mama Euralie's tears across the void between us and Ti Moune. I knew that Erzulie, the love goddess, could not be there the spin her own magic into the air behind her. She would be too busy guiding Ti Moune's way to her love- to her Daniel.

Erzulie had left us to guide our child to a grand homme.

My arm tightened involuntarily across Mama's shoulder. She didn't notice, but still stared blankly ahead, to where Ti Moune had been only moments before. Her face was tearstained, but her wide eyes were clear and dull. The lines around her mouth, usually shallow with smile, had become deep and grave set. It was as if ten years had been added to her beautiful face.

I rested my chin on her head and closed my eyes. I felt her heart beating, and my own blood pounding mirrored its steady rhythm. Her shoulders were shaking- but only very faintly could I feel the tremors in her skin, and her breathing was irregular. The blackened rims around her eyes stood out vividly in my mind. Whether they were caused with dispair or with exhaustion I did not know. Dimly I became aware that my arms were tightening around Mama too firmly for much comfort, but found that I couldn't do much about it, nor care.

Did Ti Moune know? Did she understand? How could she... how could she possibly _fathom_ what love was after less then a week? She had only seen this pale boy's face. She had never even heard him speak.

_She said she had heard drums and had seen the gods dancing for her. Is this not love?_

_She doesn't understand yet,_ I berated myself silently. _No matter what she says, she is a **child**. A child under eighteen summers. She doesn't understand how wrong dreams can go, doesn't understand how quickly they can be shattered..._

_Her heart knows her destiny. Let her go._

_How can she know destiny? The road is harsh and dangerous. And even if she gets there... even if she gets to the Hotel Beauxhomme... she will **never** get through the gate._

The memory of the gate and its horrible keeper flashed in front of my eyes. All I could see was the haughty gray eyes of the man under the hood, his upraised hand, his staff brought up to slam into my face, the wind hissing through the iron bars and through my thin, tattered coat... and all the while, the signs of lightning forked across the sky.

Agwe was _angry_. The gods don't want this. They can't. Ti Moune doesn't belong in a world like that. She is naive, simple-minded, innocent. She couldn't know what is out there in the cruel world. The love she felt was so _wrong _that it... couldn't be right.

_A heart cannot be wrong. _

_Hers is. _

It was a statement so bold that I almost couldn't believe I had used it, and my hand tightened on Mama's. _She's so **wrong**. She belongs here, with her kind. She belongs with **us**._

There was a long silence in my arguing, scrambling thoughts, and in the pause I relaxed my arms around my wife and did my best to square my shoulders. I had to be strong, had to lead Mama back to the hut and make her tea, let her rest, carry on the day tomorrow like nothing was different...

I tried a few times to meet her eye, to tell her without words that it would be best to go back to the village. But she still stared ahead, and shortly I gave up without saying a word. It might be better to not trust my voice just yet.

_How could she have done that? She left us. Just like that. She didn't even... I just **came** and she left. She didn't even... doesn't she..._

_Don't be foolish. _Thevoice in the back of my head was warm and comforting, and was not unkind or hostile to my fractured thoughts. _She is a young woman with big dreams. Dreamers can tend to be reckless._

I kissed Mama's hair softly. Her body had began shaking again, slowly, but becoming more rapid and jerky by the second. I rubbed her arms slowly, and she buried her face in the indent between my shoulder and chest.

_How could do this to us... all for a hope?_

One last tear slid down Mama's nose, despite how empty her eyes seemed to be, and despite how hard she was obviously trying to force back her tears. Without any recognition of the silver bead, it dropped to spatter on the dirt road.

_...She loves you, Tonton. More then you'll ever imagine._

I sighed and tilted my face, laying a cheek on her head. Perhaps it _was_ selfish to keep her in our village, all away from the world. Maybe we couldn't keep her all for ourselves... even if she was a perfect child. If her spirit touched anyone else's, her goodness would surely spread. It would make the world _beautiful_, something that Ti Moune had _loved_ to do, from planting flowers to weaving the tapestries of great stories of the gods. _If it makes you happy, Ti Moune. _

A small smile crept onto my face, and I rocked Mama slowly in my arms. Then I stiffened abruptly and raised my head to stare into the oncoming darkness as a sudden realization crossed my mind.

_Wait..._ _who are you? _

There was no response from the growing darkness and the ever-consuming fog.

Mama's last tear was the first raindrop that night.

_**----------------------**_

_**God, this didn't turn out anything like it was supposed to. It was supposed to be Tonton's memory of his stay at the Hotel. But then he's like, 'WELL I JUST WANT TO STAND HERE IN THE RAIN' and finally I just said 'FINE BE THAT WAY.'**_

_**God, I am so mesed up.**_

_**And I'll leave you to decide about that voice. **_

_**Please review. Because I love them so.**_


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